RIFT: What We Know of the “Nightmare Tide”

It has been almost a month since the unveiling of Trion World’s next expansion for RIFT. RIFT 3.0: Nightmare Tide was announced and the buzzing of excitement has been going since then. During the week that Bill Fisher, executive producer on RIFT, made the announcement so began the interviews with various websites. And with Trion having a “Community Day”, which gathered some of the most dedicated players in RIFT and gave them a chance to try the new expansion, I decided to compile all the information available in one short summary.

So what do we know about Nightmare Tide so far? Let’s dig in.

Zones

Nightmare Tide will consist of three new zones: Tarken Glacier, Draum Heim, and Goboro Reff and will have multiple layers.

A total of 10% of the core content is underwater.

They are going to make environments that make you feel like you’re underwater but you’re actually on dry land.

The Song of Dreams mini-saga was a great way for Trion to experiment to see what players actually wanted and what they could get away with for water based content.

The zone Tarken Glacier was heavily inspired by H.P. Lovecraft and is seen having tentacles everywhere.

There will be a greater variety of world bosses instead of one Volan-like encounter.

They have also increased the amount of story quests, as well as having discoverable quests along the way to bring more to the story.

Nightmare Rifts

These will be essentially Hunt Rifts for 3.0. There will be Nightmare Rifts I to VII.

Nightmare Rifts will be very thematic and look highly disturbing with a massive eyeball in the center of the Rift with hands and body parts all over the place.

They will scale to how many players are partaking in the Nightmare Rift and will feel like they never end (quick spawns of massive amounts of mobs, basically).

Not only are they thinking about making instances like a solo challenge mode but the Nightmare Rifts will be known to spawn in low level areas as well.

Mentoring System – Mentor Up, Instead of Down

This is a new mentoring system being brought in with 3.0 and it will allow players to participate in higher-level dungeons, possibly even raids. It was said that it will not be available through the Looking For Group window but through manually joining a group.

There are of course some limitations. You won’t be able to equip gear of a higher level than your real level. You will not be able to pick up quests that require a higher level then your real level. You will get all passives in your soul trees up to the mentored level, but will not get the higher level abilities. Finally, you’ll need to be at least level 10 to mentor up.

As for loot, it remains unclear but is assumed that you will receive level-appropriate gear for your real, un-mentored level just as you would when you mentor down.

Raid Zone – Instant Adventures

This is a feature that will come shortly after 3.0. Trion is looking into turning raid zones like Hammerknell Fortress and possibly Infernal Dawn into an Instant Adventure Zone. This could possibly be a mirror to the Looking for Raid system Blizzard implemented in World of Warcraft.

It has not been mentioned or discussed on whether you could actually fight any of the bosses in these adventures.

The idea for the Raid Zone IAs and the idea for the mentoring system both came from a Trion developer. Tacitus had been pushing this idea for about two plus years.

Minion System

Everything you kill in RIFT will give you a chance at a Minion card. You will also be able to obtain these from performing certain tasks or completing certain quest lines.

The minions will come with a fixed set of stats but will level up normally like you would. In order to level them, you use the minions to complete tasks in the Minions Interface.

Minions will not be character-bound, but account-bound instead.

Improving PvP

Trion is working on fixing the gear gap that currently exists. They want to provide more progression and less normalization but also close the gap that already exists.

The gear changes will be universal, so they will apply to open world PvP and possibly even warfronts to bring down the barriers across the board.

These changes will also include a major improvement for PvP players to do PvE content in 3.0 much easier and faster.

PvE Gear Changes

Tank gear will still exist in 3.0, however, the stat Toughness will be removed. All tanks will simply require Hit instead and will still use Block and Deflect for the foreseeable future.

A new tank stat known as Guard is being introduced as well. Guard will affect all party members and allow players standing within a certain perimeter of the tank to receive some form of a positive benefit. While no information was given as to what this ability will do, it was said to be an aura and if there are two Guard stats on a piece of gear, the highest stat will be applied.

On top of these major changes, we will also be seeing some smaller changes happening. We will eventually see account-wide storage, and a couple of the old dungeons will be making their way back into 3.0. Trion is also working on adjusting the performance of the game.

It seems like Trion has learned from their mistakes in Storm Legion by spreading some locations out too thin which caused players to lose interest in leveling. They have also stated they are going to leave quest hubs in to introduce big story characters as well as let players discover new quests on their journey, but we can expect the leveling experience in general to be more compact this time around.

So when can we expect this expansion to release? While no official date has been stated, they have stated numerous times that it will most likely not be December. My personal guess is with Warlords of Draenor coming out in November, to keep the player base strong in RIFT, we will see the release in October. With all of this information on Nightmare Tide, how are you preparing to take on the evils that lurk ahead? Let us know in the comments below!

David Butterfield

When it comes time for video games, "Dave B. aka Valnimsil" doesn't joke around. Whether it's an MMORPG or an FPS, Dave is enthusiastic about what the story is and where the characters will go. From games like WildStar to Rift, there is always something for Dave to enjoy and dig into. Outside of games and work, Dave's favorite food is pizza and is quite fond of the phrase "Cowabunga!"